Quote of the day—Tom Knighton

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These gang members didn’t have too hard a time getting around New Jersey’s gun laws. More than that, though, your typical gang member isn’t known for being some kind of master criminal.

In other words, if they can get guns, anyone can get guns.

…

When it comes to gun control, the only ones really slowed down by the law are good, decent, law-abiding citizens who are trying to walk the straight and narrow path. The criminals, on the other hand, will find a way around it without much challenge. Most probably won’t even realize a new law was passed.

Tom Knighton
August 12, 2021
Gang Members Don’t Seem Bothered By New Jersey Gun Laws
[It’s easier to believe this is all according to plan rather than the politicians are that stupid and/or ignorant after so many decades of no evidence that gun control makes the general population safer.

I am nearly convinced it’s about creating a safe work environment for the politicians and their comrades, the criminals. This is well-known. Read The Gulag Archipelago. The USSR regarded thieves as allies in the building of communism because they were the enemy of property owners. Why should our modern day socialists behave any differently?—Joe]

Quote of the day—Taliban

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We understand people kept weapons for personal safety. They can now feel safe. We are not here to harm innocent civilians.

Taliban
August 16, 2021
Taliban in Afghan capital Kabul start collecting weapons from civilians
[That is so reassuring. They have me totally convinced to give them my ammo and guns. Have them stop by my house some time and I’ll let them have it.—Joe]

This is what they think of you

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Via email from Rolf:

MindOfTheLeft

I’m sure that will convince everyone of the righteousness of their cause. They can’t convince people with words so they just need to change the means of persuasion.

Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]

Range construction details

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Sebastian asked about the details of the base for the ecology blocks on the walls around my range. Here are some pictures and additional information.

The ground this time of year is really hard. It took a large dozer and a heavy excavator to get down to, essentially level. The range has a 1% grade down range to the target berm. A mini excavator was used to dig the footings about another six to eight inches deeper and three feet wide. This was filled with four inches of compacted and wetted, 3/4” with fines, gravel which was carefully (it took two people about two days complete this stage) made level. This deliberately did not match the 1% grade. Being level allowed for the back wall to be straight and have interlocking corners.

This first picture is looking down range from near the up range end of what will be the right wall.

20210805_094928

This is the compactor in use along the left wall:

image

A four inch drain tile was put just inside the back wall (as seen on the right in the picture below) which exits under the right wall in the foreground:

image

Another drain tile, parallel to the first, will be placed 15 feet from the back wall and will catch drainage before it reaches the target berm. This will connect to the first drain tile with a Y a few feet outside the range.

The floor of the range will be covered with four inches of compacted, 3/4” with fines, gravel.

Quote of the day—Cam Edwards

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It is worth noting that even previously ardent supporters of restricting the right to keep and bear arms don’t want to talk those ideas on the campaign trail in Cleveland this year. Instead, they’re talking about building up the city’s police force, focusing on violent actors, and at least in one case, encouraging residents to obtain a concealed carry license so that they don’t have to fear for their lives when they step outside their door. This is a step in the right direction, and a sign that at least some Democrats feel comfortable putting some distance between themselves and the gun control lobby that’s still eager to court their support.

Cam Edwards
August 16, 2021
Change: Cleveland Democrats Downplay Gun Control As Solution To Violent Crime
[Yes, it’s worth noting. I might have some trust in their change of direction after they advocate for and repeal many of the restrictions on our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.

Until then I’ll continue to advocate for their prosecution.—Joe]

Good advice on suppressors

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80% Silencers, the Political Ramifications of Mass Ownership is a bit old but I found it very informative. Some of the more interesting takeaways (emphasis added) are:

Purchasing or legally making a firearms silencer is one of the most effective steps a Second Amendment supporter can take to undermine the National Firearms Act and incrementally restore Second Amendment rights. Second Amendment supporters are well on the way to removing the NFA through an unusual tool: Overwhelming compliance.

…

Once silencers become common enough so they do not draw immediate attention at the range or in the field, we have the ingredients for victory.

At that point, a law enforcement officer will not have reasonable suspicion to inspect a silencer and to demand information to prove the silencer is legal and registered. Such demands would violate the First and Fourth Amendments.

An important part of this structure is a practice I have seen on a number of Youtube videos. The manufacturer information and serial number of the silencer pictured is covered. The information is there; it is simply not available to casual inspection or to the public. Removal of the cover is a search, requiring probable cause or a warrant. Do not grant permission for law enforcement to remove the cover.

…

I have heard of numerous incidents where local law enforcement officers have contacted the ATF about mere possession of silencers, short-barreled rifles, or short-barreled shotguns, only to be told the ATF is not interested unless there is another crime involved.

This is anecdotal. It indicates enforcement of mere possession of silencers may not be a high priority for the ATF.

In a class of his own

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Last weekend I participated* in the USPSA Area 1 Championship. As expected, Christian Sailer won.

One of the people in my squad, Steve, runs major matches in Montana and does range officer work for other major matches. He told stories of running Christian through stages.

Christian sees the stages differently than other people. He even sees them differently than other Grand Master shooters. When Steve runs Christian on a stage he doesn’t bother to follow him. He asks, “Where are you going to end up?” He then runs to the destination (as soon as it is safe to do so) and meets Christian in time to capture the last shot on the timer.

A specific example given was a stage where there were two targets visible between two barricades. Other Grand Masters would pause and fire the four shots, two per target, then continue on to the next targets. Christian ran by at full speed, “Bang, bang, bang, bang!” This resulted in four A-Zone hits.

As Steve pointed out, Christian is in a class of his own. Here are the results of the top ten people in the match from last weekend and from looking at the Match Points and Match Percentage you can clearly see this:

Place Name Class Div Match Pts Match %
1 Sailer, Christian G O 1460.8107 100.0000 %
2 Michel, Max G CO 1310.4572 89.7075 %
3 Ramberg, Tim G PCC 1275.3206 87.3022 %
4 Williams, Justine G PCC 1243.8811 85.1501 %
5 Conaway, Brennan G O 1229.281 84.1506 %
6 Tan, Loke G O 1228.1294 84.0718 %
7 Liu, Eric G O 1214.7476 83.1557 %
8 Chang, Jun G O 1209.7619 82.8144 %
9 Coley, Shane G L 1209.0808 82.7678 %
10 Steiner, Eric M O 1202.3446 82.3067 %

Notice how the people below him are grouped fairly tightly. There is no one within 10% of Christian.

I had hoped to watch him shoot a stage or two but he was shooting on the exact opposite times I was at the match. Here is the video of most of the stages:

* I came in 41 out of 58 in Limited Division and second out of seven in my age/division category. I had not shot an USPSA match since December of 2019. And with COVID keeping me out of the office I did not have the normal lunchtime access to the range for practice.

In another week or so I will have my private gun range and much better access to range conditions suitable for this type of practice: I’m going to be taking practice much more seriously:

20210811_134541

Quote of the day—Magus Melanie @MagusMelanie

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I have yet to hear any actual argumentation in favour of automatic fire guns vs semi- or single shot guns… just a lot of cock size defending

Magus Melanie @MagusMelanie
Tweeted on August 13, 2021
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

I was already on the case but In Chains @InChainsInJail also gave me a heads up.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Michael Snyder

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Congress is going to pass wild spending package after wild spending package, and the Fed is just going to continue to pump billions upon billions of fresh dollars into the financial system.

This is the greatest financial bubble in the history of the world, and it will be fascinating to watch how long it can last before it finally implodes.

Michael Snyder
August 11, 2021
I Feel Like I Am Living In Crazytown
[For certain values of “fascinating”.

Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Point: Counterpoint

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I think I detect some hostility in the response.

Perhaps the anger clouded his thinking and this is why they limited the probable response to the unvaccinated. I am inclined to believe there are vaccinated people who also regard authoritarian activities as worthy of a similar response.

Quote of the day—Anne Stalfort @astalfort

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I am 100% for getting rid of the Second Amendment

Anne Stalfort @astalfort
Tweeted on July 20, 2021
[That will happen sometime after she reanimates her cold dead fingers.

Just remember, no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ted Cruz @tedcruz

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We woke libruls don’t need no fancy book learning.

Ted Cruz @tedcruz
Tweeted on August 11, 2021
[This is in regard to this:Image

This sounds like the “logic’ used for a lot of the push for more people to get college degrees and why it should be free in the last few decades., “People with college degrees earn more money and have better lives. Everyone should get college degrees.”

It, perhaps deliberately, confuses cause and effect. People with certain college degrees had the aptitude to understand and apply the course material required for high paying jobs in certain fields. It wasn’t just a generic college degree that resulted in high paying jobs. The English, psychology,  music, art appreciation, etc. degrees did not correlate with high paying jobs like the medical, legal, engineering, finance, and business degrees. But the political sounds bites led you to believe it was the degree and not the person able to acquire the degree that made the difference between the degreed and non-degreed.

It appears the failed (for certain definitions of “failed”, one can make the case it was deliberate deception which worked exactly as planned) college degrees for everyone project is now being implemented at the high school level.

And so now, it is clear we need to add Oregon to the list of states circling the toilet drain. The Antifa/BLM stuff in Portland is just the most visible symptom.

I recently met a group of people who could be described as Oregon refugees. They left Oregon because of the stupid and/or evil politics and took up residence in Idaho. Idaho is the fastest growing state in the union. The people I was talking to are living in travel trailers and mobile homes as they try to get their own homes built. They work in the construction industry and help fill the gap in construction workers. They own and/or rent heavy equipment and are skilled operators. I wish them well and welcome them to Idaho.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sumera Siddiqi

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Humanity needs to become a bigger priority in this state. This means that stricter gun control is necessary. Our government should listen to its people and make them feel safe, rather than allowing a law as dangerous as permitless carry.

Sumera Siddiqi
Liberal studies freshman at University of Houston
August 9, 2021
Permitless carry infringes on the right to safety
[Is it truth or is it a caricature? Sometimes it is so hard to tell.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Larry Keane

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There are lies, damned lies and gun control lies. The problem with the gun control lies is that those who continue to spout them have no shame even when they’ve been proven wrong.

Larry Keane
August 9, 2021
NSSF: There’s one thing those who are pushing for gun control don’t want you to know. It’s called “the truth”.
[As Lyle sometimes points out, a case could be made that they take pride in their lies.—Joe]

Quote of the day—J. KB

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I have been listening to the book Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland on Audible on my commute.

It’s a difficult book to listen to.

In chapter 10, the author talks about the clearing of the ghetto at Międzyrzec to send the Jews to Treblinka.

What stuck out at me was that 11,000 Jews were deported and over 900 shot by a cadre of only 350 police.

…

And there wasn’t one report of Jews fighting back.

J. KB
July 23, 2021
Why I am the way I am
[The book sounds as if it has similar content to Hitler’s Willing Executioners which I have posted (this post is extremely relevant J. KB concerns) about before.

I just purchased the Audible version of Ordinary Men and will start it later this week when I finish the current book I’m listening too.

As difficult as the books may be to read/listen-to they present some very important lessons worth learning.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Thomas Abt

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Everything we know about evidence-based violence interruption says you have to interact directly with the highest-risk individuals. And that’s true for police, but that’s also true for all sorts of community services, including but not limited to street outreach. So for all of these individuals who are at the highest risk, all of a sudden, all of those services stop because of the physical distancing mandates.

Thomas Abt
August 2, 2021
What Philadelphia Reveals About America’s Homicide Surge
[Ahh… This can explain the rise in violent crime over the last year or so. I had not had a good hypothesis for what was going on. This sounds quite plausible.—Joe]

Quote of the day—James

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Why is it that back in the 1950’s, one could walk into a hardware store, gun shop or mail order all kinds of firearms with no background checks or waiting period and crime was far less than today?

James
August 7, 2021
Comment to BREAKING: Mexico Blames American Guns For Their Problems, Sues U.S.
[My first hypothesis is criminals were more likely to be prosecuted then. My second hypothesis is that we didn’t have a culture of entitlement and people competing for profit in the victim Olympics. Both could be true as well as false.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Allan Stein

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While many individual preppers and prepper organizations try to remain anonymous, the number of people preparing appears to be growing. In the last year alone, roughly 45 percent of Americans, or about 116 million people, said they spent money preparing for hard times or spent money stockpiling survival goods.

Allan Stein
August 6, 2021
‘Preppers’ Quietly Stock Up for the ‘Perfect Storm’
[We live in interesting times.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Davide Mastracci

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I’m not going to speculate as to why people buy pickup trucks, but the reality is the vast majority aren’t doing so for work purposes.

Their choice is putting us all at risk, whether on the streets, or through damage to the climate. Reducing further destruction to the climate and harm from needlessly fatal road accidents is far more important than corporate or consumer freedom.

It’s time to ban sales of pickup trucks for non-work purposes, for all of our sakes.

Davide Mastracci
July 13, 2021
Reducing further climate destruction and harm from needlessly fatal road accidents is more important than corporate or consumer freedom.
[Tyrants have to tyrant.

Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Margaret Sullivan

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The democracy beat shouldn’t be some kind of specialized innovation, but a widespread rethinking across the mainstream media.

Making this happen will call for something that Big Journalism is notoriously bad at: An open-minded, nondefensive recognition of what’s gone wrong.

Top editors, Sunday talk-show moderators and other news executives should pull together their brain trusts to grapple with this. And they should be transparent with the public about what they’re doing and why.

As a model, they might have to swallow their big-media pride and look to places like Harrisburg, Pa., public radio station WITF which has admirably explained to its audience why it continually offers reminders about the actions of those public officials who tried to overturn the 2020 election results. Or to Cleveland Plain Dealer editor Chris Quinn’s letter to readers about how the paper and its website, Cleveland.com, refuse to cover every reckless, attention-getting lie of Republican Josh Mandel as he runs for the U.S. Senate next year.

Margaret Sullivan
July 28, 2021
Our democracy is under attack. Washington journalists must stop covering it like politics as usual.
[Ms. Sullivan openly demands the suppression of views which diverge from her narrative.

Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]